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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   2622 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 8, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Its not like it happened by accident. Nvidia foresaw the use of their cards for scientific computing when none of their competitors did. Like all siccess stories, Huang was lucky that the future came in a particular shape, but he also made very savvy moves.

This is not true. Both AMD and Intel saw this coming at roughly the same time (eg, see the Xeon Phi line), but were too focused on CPUs to really capitalize on it. Nvidia's success is less in the foresight and more in the lack of distraction at the time.

See my reply to @dailydogma. Other companies may have dropped the ball, but NVIDIA definitely picked it up early.

I agree with you that Nvidia made some very savvy moves, but "foresaw the use of their cards for scientific computing when none of their competitors did" is not among them. Everyone saw this coming. What crowned Nvidia was the accessible software ecosystem they built around the cards. AMD has always been really weak on the software side, which caused them to fall far behind. Intel was too focused on their CPU market and the Phi line was a product of that--it tried to be a GPU you could program like a CPU. IBM had similar problems as AMD, though less due to being weak on the software side and more due to being run by lawyers that want to make sure nobody can ever actually use it.

Okay, that's fair. They executed well, though, and my point is more that NVIDIA (and Huang) weren't just silly gamers who got the AI revolution magically dumped into their laps.

No but it did happen by accident. He started a gaming hardware company, didn't design the hardware himself, then he got fortunate that AI ended up being based on linear algebra.

I think a lot of people think the world is a lot more ordered than it is. Fortune means luck. A lot of successful people are lucky.

NVIDIA began working on high-performance parallel computation 2003-2007. They created and released CUDA in 2007, long before AlexNet, so that scientists could do high-performance calculations in a dedicated computing language instead of formatting their work as gimped shaders. In 2007 NVIDIA had already released a separate GPU for scientific research: the Tesla.

Between 2009 and 2011 NVIDIA's annual reports repeatedly made it clear that they considered scientific computing to be one of their three top priorities, on par with gaming. They saw this as investing in financial modelling, pharmaceutical modelling and others potentially large markets.

AlexNet didn't come out until 2012.

Yes, Huang was fortunate that AI ended up being based on linear algebra, but business development is about going hunting for Lady Luck and being ready to welcome Her when she arrives. NVIDIA definitely did that.

TLDR: The reason that NVIDIA is a giant and AMD is barely an afterthought (in GPUs) is because NVIDIA made a lot of expensive and tactically insightful investments in the 2000s, long before deep learning came along.

Yes, Huang was fortunate that AI ended up being based on linear algebra, but business development is about going hunting for Lady Luck and being ready to welcome Her when she arrives.

I don't disagree with you at all. The question is, given the exact same behavior from Huang, what's the spread of his final net worth over different worlds? I believe he rolled top 1% on that and his median outcome was being worth maybe $2 million right now. What do you think?

I've no idea? I don't really believe that you can model the world like that - Rawlsian 'but what if you were somebody else' philosophy has never really held much interest for me.

Certainly every very rich man had a lucky break. More so now, when the world is more global and competition is fiercer. So hypothetically Musk / Huang / whoever would have some lower median net work spread over all the infinite worlds that don't exist. Unless they are actually genuinely special: I haven't met any of them. I've met someone comparable and he was definitely a cut above most people in risk-management/politics/drive/intelligence but how far is hard to tell.

In general though I'm more interested in analysing how people make good decisions to maximise their potential for lucky breaks than to what extent people do get lucky breaks.

I've no idea? I don't really believe that you can model the world like that - Rawlsian 'but what if you were somebody else' philosophy has never really held much interest for me.

It's basic probability. What is the distribution w(*|Jensen)?

Maybe they are actually genuinely special: I haven't met any of them. I've met someone comparable and he was definitely a cut above most people in risk-management/politics/drive/intelligence but how far is hard to tell.

They could be 99%ile latently but that still means the median of w(*|Jensen) might be $2 million. So they are special, but not more special than many people on this forum.

In general though I'm more interested in analysing how people make good decisions to maximise their potential for lucky breaks than to what extent people do get lucky breaks.

Your analysis will be confounded if you can't separate the luck from the decision. A lot of people have this issue actually and it leads to cargo culting. Common with Musk fans imo.

Thank you, I know what probability is. Talking about probability for one-off events where a true probability can never be established is intellectually and philosophically dubious, in my personal opinion.

Forecasting is one thing, you have no choice, but when we're talking about the past and other people's actions and the consequences thereof, I think it behooves one to show humility and study what successful people did rather than assigning their success too confidently to 'luck'. I think it produces a more accurate analysis.

Your analysis will be confounded if you can't separate the luck from the decision. A lot of people have this issue actually and it leads to cargo culting.

Certainly this can happen. To my mind, the point is to look at what they did in advance, and how much that put them in position to get whatever lucky break they ended up getting. I have no idea about Musk specifically but he's done well a few times now and that says something. Reading hagiographies uncritically can be fun too, of course, but that's more like a vicarious fantasy.

To quote Napoleon: "I like my generals lucky."

Talking about probability for one-off events where a true probability can never be established is intellectually and philosophically dubious, in my personal opinion.

Imagine you never saw dice before, but God made some and told you to roll them. You roll them. Then they disappear, and nobody has any interest in making dice again. Does it make sense to talk about the probability distribution of the dice roll? I think it does. And we're not that limited because I think a similar process plays out for every person.

Forecasting is one thing, you have no choice, but when we're talking about the past and other people's actions and the consequences thereof, I think it behooves one to show humility and study what successful people did rather than assigning their success too confidently to 'luck'. I think it produces a more accurate analysis.

Yes, luck should not be over-attributed. Rather, we should strive to attribute to luck what was luck, and to merit what was merit.

I have no idea about Musk specifically but he's done well a few times now and that says something.

It could say he got lucky a few times.

To my mind, the point is to look at what they did in advance, and how much that put them in position to get whatever lucky break they ended up getting.

Right, but you should counteract survivorship bias by looking at all the people who also did that and did not get super lucky.

Imagine you never saw dice before, but God made some and told you to roll them. You roll them. Then they disappear, and nobody has any interest in making dice again. Does it make sense to talk about the probability distribution of the dice roll? I think it does.

I don't personally believe that thought experiment is applicable, or a wise way to think about one-off massively-multicausal events in the world as it actually is. You do, I get that, but I don't.

It could say he got lucky a few times.

I think this is hubristic. Strive to attribute to luck what was luck, sure, but assume merit before you assume luck. If you assume merit, the worst that can happen is you will overindex. If you assume luck, there is a very real danger you won't learn anything at all, to protect your ego.

Right, but you should counteract survivorship bias by looking at all the people who also did that and did not get super lucky.

What would I learn from that, beyond to temper my expectations and not to take super risky moves? Which I already know.

The fact of the matter is that some people succeed and some fail, and the ones who succeed are usually more interesting and more qualified along multiple axes than the ones who fail, and provide more to learn from.

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